From the day of her first visit Lazare had received her as though she had been a boy, a younger brother, some nine years his junior, but so merry and amusing and with such big intelligent eyes as to be in no wise in his way; and as usual he went on smoking his pipe, lolling in his chair with his legs cocked up in the air, or reading, or writing long letters into which he slipped flowers. Sometimes they made a pretty riot between them, for Pauline had a habit of suddenly springing upon the table or bounding through the split folds of the old screen. One morning as Lazare wondered why he did not hear her, and turned to ascertain what she might be about, he saw her, foil in hand, with her face screened with the fencing-mask as she flourished away at space. Whenever he told her to be still or threatened to turn her out of the room, the result was a tremendous skirmish and a wild pursuit through the disorderly place. Then she would fly at him and throw her arms on his neck, and he twirled her round like a top, with her petticoats circling about her. As the room echoed with their merry child-like laughter, he felt quite a boy again himself. Next the piano afforded them occupation. It was an old instrument of Érard's make, dating from the year 1810, and upon it, in former times, Mademoiselle Eugénie de la Vignière had given lessons for fifteen years. The strings in its mahogany case, from which most of the polish had departed, sighed out far-away tones of a muffled softness. Lazare, who had never been able to persuade his mother to get him a new piano, strummed away on the old instrument with all his might, without succeeding in eliciting from it the sonorous rhapsodies buzzing in his head; and he had got into the habit of adding the notes of his own voice to the instrument's in order to obtain the required volume of sound. His passion for music soon led him to abuse Pauline's easy complaisance. He had found a listener, and for whole afternoons he kept her there while he went through his _répertoire_, which comprised all that was most complicated in music, and notably the then unacknowledged scores of Berlioz and Wagner. He poured forth his vocal accompaniment, and, as his enthusiasm increased, rendered the piece quite as much with his throat as with his fingers. On these occasions the poor child used to feel dreadfully bored, but she went on listening with an air of rapt attention, so that she might not hurt her cousin's feelings.